New Routines

Tomorrow Sadie turns four months old. She continues to change every single day. Just when I think I've figured out who this little person is, she changes into someone completely different. The baby she is now is not the baby she was at three months old. Hell, she's not the baby she was two weeks ago.

The biggest change is her new sleeping schedule -- she no longer goes down for a nap after 90 minutes, but stretches it out to two hours at a time. The short catnaps are becoming longer, and the long afternoon nap, which used to be reliably 2-3 hours long, is now spotted with constant wake-ups. Luckily, she does go back to sleep again, but no more uninterrupted stretches of blissful daytime sleep.

The swing, which used to be her best friend, she now treats with disdain at best. This is definitely a recent change that happened in a big hurry when it did happen. It used to be that if I wanted her to nap I'd bundle her up in a blanket so that her arms were pinned to her sides, pop her in the swing, turn on the overhead mobile and within a few minutes she'd be out.

Then, she began to fuss before falling asleep. Turning her head side to side, wriggling, then finally sleeping. Things began to wake her up more easily -- Pepper barking, me opening the back door -- and when she woke up, she had no desire to be in the swing anymore.

Finally, this past week, she has let us know loud and clear that she does not want to nap in the swing anymore, ever. Put her in there and she screams bloody murder. She'll be in the swing for playtime -- MAYBE. For a little while. But sleep, no. Fortunately, this refusal of the swing has come hand in hand with a newfound tolerance for hanging out in her crib, something she never used to do unless she was swaddled and already drowsy.  So there you go -- nap time is now in the crib, permanently.

The second change -- and I NEVER saw this coming -- is that she has decided she likes a pacifier after all. The first time I discovered this was right before I wrote my last blog post, in which I expressed frustration over why it was so hard to get Sadie to fall asleep.

Well, she doesn't cry any less when she's tired, but we've both discovered that if you pop a pacifier in her mouth, she instantly mellows out and goes into her nice, quiet alpha state. Go figure -- she used to want nothing to do with the "paci." It was like a poor excuse for a boob, and she used to be furious with me when I tried to offer it to her. And I used to appreciate that, because my fear has always been that she would get too attached to the paci and it would be tough to wean her off of it.

Now? Ha. If she wants it, she can have it, man. That tiny piece of rubber and plastic has been a lifesaver. They don't call it a pacifier for nothing.